The Birth Order Book (21 page)

1. Set aside a few minutes to consider each trait. Decide if each trait is a strength or a weakness for you.

2. If the trait is a weakness, what changes could you make to improve in that area?

3. If it’s a strength, how could you capitalize on that strength or develop it even further?

Strength and Weaknesses of Middle Children

Ask Yourself

1. Is being a middle child comfortable for me? How do I know?

2. Would my family and friends call me secretive or open?

3. How willing am I to seek help from counselors, doctors, and other authority figures?

4. How do I recall my older sibling or siblings? Did they snowplow the roads of life for me, or did they make the roads even rougher to travel? If the latter, have I made peace with that—and them?

5. In the process of give-and-take (at home or at work), I would rate myself as A (excellent), B (good), or C (fair to poor). What are my reasons for that rating?

6. If I felt squeezed and felt that life was not always fair while I was growing up, how have I adjusted to that as an adult? Is that legacy a strength or a weakness today?

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Born Last but Seldom Least
The Baby of the Family

F
irst of all, I want all you babies of the family to know that I’m on to you. I know you just skipped the first eight chapters and started right here. I understand. Like any lastborn, I would have done the same thing. I hope you’ll go back later to read some pretty important stuff you missed (it’ll sure help you understand everyone else in your family, your friends, and your co-workers), but meanwhile let’s begin with a little story of how Cubby Leman found his true calling in life.

The year is 1952. The scene is a hot gymnasium at Williamsville Central High School in western New York. A hard-fought basketball game is in progress, and a skinny little 8-year-old kid is out on the floor trying to lead cheers during a time-out. Pinned on his sweater is an image of the team mascot—a billy goat.

The game is as close as the air. The place is packed with screaming fans, but at the moment the fans aren’t screaming for the “Billies.” They’re all laughing at this little kid, who has gotten the cheer completely backwards and has forgotten what comes next. His big sister, captain of the Williamsville cheerleaders, looks embarrassed, but she has to laugh too, because this little kid is pretty funny.

But is the little 8-year-old guy embarrassed? He doesn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, he’s looking up at the crowd and kind of enjoying the fact that they’re all laughing!

Loving the Limelight

I was that little kid—born last in a batch of three—nicknamed “Cub” when I was 11 days old. The name stuck, and as I became a toddler and a preschooler, I instinctively became aware of how to always be the “cute little Cubby” in the family. The youngest may have been born last, but he has a sixth sense that tells him he’s not going to be least!

Youngest children in the family are typically the outgoing charmers, the personable manipulators. They are also affectionate, uncomplicated, and sometimes a little absentminded. Their “What? Me worry?” approach to life gets smiles and shakes of the head. Lastborns are the most likely to show up at the elementary school concert or the Sunday school picnic unzipped or unbuttoned in some delicately obvious area. Without doubt, they can be a little different.

It stands to reason, then, that the family clown or entertainer is likely to be the lastborn. No one told me that—I just naturally assumed the role. That was my thing in life— getting people to laugh or point or comment.

No wonder, then, that when I turned 8 and my cheerleader sister, Sally, invited me to become the mascot for the high school team, I jumped at the chance. Hundreds of people came to those games, and they would all be looking right at me! I loved every minute of it, even that embarrassing scene when I forgot the cheer and the crowd roared with laughter. In fact, at that moment in the Williamsville High School gym, I made a decision. In my 8-year-old mind, at least, a star was born. I decided to be an entertainer.

Qualities of a Lastborn

Manipulative, charming, blames others, attention seeker, tenacious, people person, natural salesperson, precocious, engaging, affectionate, loves surprises

Yes, I know I came out a psychologist who is practicing family therapy. I enjoy my chosen profession and get deep satisfaction from helping families, but my cherished avocation is making people laugh, and I do it whenever and wherever I can.

The Dark Side of Being a “Clown”

A typical characteristic of the lastborn is that he is carefree and vivacious—a real people person who is usually popular in spite of (because of?) his clowning antics. Get the family together for the big Thanksgiving or Christmas photo. Work tenaciously to maneuver everyone into place and to snap the picture when everyone looks halfway sane, and— whoops! Who’s that over on the left with the crossed eyes trying to touch his nose with his tongue? Yes, it’s lastborn Fletcher (who in this picture may be 26 years old) doing his thing for a laugh.

Or maybe Fletcher is doing his thing for other reasons. There is another strain of characteristics in most lastborns. Besides being charming, outgoing, affectionate, and uncomplicated, they can also be rebellious, temperamental, manipulative, spoiled, impatient, and impetuous.

I can relate to this dark side of the lastborn. Without question, part of my motivation for being “clown prince” of the Leman family was that I wasn’t born crown prince or princess. Sally and Jack had beaten me to it. It seemed to me they had all the talent, ability, and smarts. Five years older, Jack was 9.75 in everything he did. Eight years older, Sally was a perfect 10.0. Ever since I could remember, it seemed that I scored around 1.8 in comparison to their abilities and achievements. In short, they had all the firepower, and I was a dud.

So it’s no surprise that I took the Dennis the Menace route to get my share of the attention. As a 5-year-old, I went to a relative’s wedding and became forever established in her memory bank when it came time to throw the rice. Everyone was throwing rice but Kevin. I was throwing gravel.

They had all the firepower, and I was a dud.

These are typical feelings and actions of the lastborn child. Lastborns carry the curse of not being taken very seriously, first by their families and then by the world. And many lastborns have a “burning desire to make an important contribution to the world.”
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From the time they are old enough to start figuring things out, lastborns are acutely aware that they are the youngest, smallest, weakest, and least equipped to compete in life. After all, who can trust little Festus to set the table or pour the milk? He’s just not quite big enough for that yet.

Those Born Before Cast a Long Shadow

I like the description of lastborns by Mopsy Strange Kennedy, a family therapist who has written on occasion for various magazines. Mopsy is a lastborn herself, and that’s no surprise. Only a lastborn baby of the family is likely to grow up, get a degree, become a therapist, and still keep a handle that sounds like a nickname or pet label of some kind. So Mopsy speaks from experience when she observes that the babies of the family “live, inevitably, in the potent shadow of those who were Born Before.”
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From the time they are old enough to start figuring things out, lastborns are acutely aware that they are the youngest, smallest, weakest, and least equipped to compete in life.

I understand when Mopsy recalls how her early achievements (tying shoes, learning to read, telling time) were greeted with polite yawns and murmurings of “Isn’t that nice” or, worse, “Bryan, do you remember when Ralph learned to do that?” Ralph, of course, is the big brother born first.

Parents get all “taught out” by the time the lastborn arrives. The tendency is to let the lastborn sort of shift for himself.

Lastborns instinctively know and understand that their knowledge and ability carry far less weight than that of their older brothers and sisters. Not only do parents react with less spontaneous joy at the accomplishments of the lastborn, but they may, in fact, impatiently wonder,
Why can’t this kid catch on faster? His older brother had this down cold by the time he was 2½
.

Part of the reason for this is that the parents get all “taught out” by the time the lastborn arrives. The tendency is to let the lastborn sort of shift for himself. It’s not unusual for babies of the family to get most of their instruction from their brothers and sisters in many areas. The parents are just too pooped for any more pedagogy.

Obviously, receiving instructions from older brothers and sisters does not ensure that lastborns are getting the facts of life (or anything else) very straight. Lastborns are used to being put down or written off. The older kids always laugh at the babies, who still grope blindly with fantasies like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. It’s no wonder the lastborn grows up with an “I’ll show
them
!” attitude.

It’s no wonder the lastborn grows up with an “I’ll show
them
!” attitude.

The Checkered Academic Career of Kevin the Clown

In
First Child, Second Child
, Wilson and Edington comment:

Some lastborns become very adept at charming the world in various ways, while others grow up with a feeling that the only way they can gain anybody’s attention is by making a mess; by being a problem child or a pest or a rebel who enjoys shooting spitballs at City Hall. If you are a typical lastborn, you have a fair share of both the charmer and the rebel in your makeup, and other people are often caught off guard by the fact that you can be endearing one minute, and hard to deal with the next.
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The above paragraph describes me to the last untied shoelace. To “really show them I mattered” was one of my main motivations while growing up, and I was indeed a charmer one moment and a spitball-shooting rebel the next. I have to say that Sally and Jack didn’t make fun of me a lot. Indeed, Sally became something of a second mother. But both of them certainly had it all over me in the achievement categories. I often describe the three of us in the same terminology used for reading groups at school. Sally, the A+ student, and Jack, the B+ student, were the “bluebirds” of the family. I took one look at all this and decided to become the “crow.” Reading bored me, and studying anything was the last thing I wanted to do—and I usually did it last, or not at all.

But I wanted—and desperately needed—attention, and I got it by clowning, teasing, and showing off. I wasn’t your classic juvenile delinquent. I could actually be quite diplomatic, which probably saved my life a few times when I went too far with big brother Jack.

When I could tell that he was getting ready to land on me, I’d go into one of my cute little self-deprecating speeches and say things such as, “C’mon, Jack, you’re so handsome, you’re the king, you’re the best. You wouldn’t hurt a poor little guy like me, would you?” My ploys usually worked— at least, they reduced Jack’s wrath to a sharp punch on the arm instead of something more serious that might have rear-ranged my teeth.

Another thing you will read on the characteristics charts for lastborns: they are suckers for praise and encouragement. A little pat on the head, a slap on the back, and a “Go get ’em—we’re counting on you” is enough to keep a lastborn going for hours, if not weeks.
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